Queen of ashes
by Kyouyimina
Summary: Road is left out when all her family, except Adam, is gone, slaughtered by the Fourteenth. Maybe, maybe before she had been a mother to her lost brothers, when Adam was still missing, maybe at some point she was loving and caring and fierce... Now she's frightened, terrified by what her nights come up with. Isn't it funny for the Noah of Dream to control any fantasy but her own?


Featuring: Road Kamelot and her uncontrollable, mind-blowing nightmares.

Time: During the 35 years between Neah's death and beginning of DGM, before any Noah reincarnates, aka Road is left alone with a mourning Adam, still has to deal with her own shit.

Writing song: Ib (game) - Title music

Prepare yourself for horror and angst.

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Road wakes up sweating, surrounded by wet blankets, and immediately twists her head to the bed's side in order _not_ to throw up on her mattress, or worse, on herself. Vomit flows out of her lips as she bows over the floor, trying not to think about the moment she'll have to clean that up. With a quick hand, she wipes her mouth, wincing at the acid, horrid taste on her tongue.

_Pathetic_, she curses herself with disgust. _There lies the more accurate description. The Dream, elder of the Noah, stronger than any human, able to control any dream, ever, of anyone... Pathetic, nothing else._

It's quite ironic that the queen of dreams is the victim of her own nightmares. Ironic, ridiculous, and the proof of her final uselessness. Enough for her to almost giggle in self-loathing. The hatred she entertains toward herself almost, almost out-range the love she has for her family. Which is funny now, considering that this exact family, its greatness and power, is the very source of this self-hatred she nourishes.

None of them, after all, is fragile the way she is; none of them has to hide the way their power is also their Achilles' heel; none of them is asked to stand strong and represent, help them all, when _it's really the more grotesque farce that exist, given the fact that she's weak, so weak compared to them, sobbing alone in the dark as soon as night outrun her_.

"It's okay, Dreamy, you'll be alright." whispers someone by her side.

She stiffens in terror, feeling water filling her eyes as she fails to withhold a frightened, painful whine. Turning slowly her neck to the voice she knows so terribly well - as if forcing sluggishness would soothe the horror of the future vision - she wails softly, thinking distinctively that she may piss herself if-

The first thing she recognize are two glowing, piercing golden eyes. Then blood, everywhere. She wants to scream, but the sound dies in her throat, even though the urge is so powerful it seems like it's trying to claw its way through her mouth. It's Neah, covered with her brothers' carmine, looking at her with affection and pity and tenderness and such calm...

Then he breaths a "Soon, you'll be sleeping well, like all of your family"; his face is nothing but decomposed flesh anymore, eyes black holes of sanguine ink. All the efforts she puts in crawling away are vain as he rips her eyes opens, chews her nose, splashes red all over her visage.

She finally releases a loud shriek, high-pitched and helpless, as she wakes up, terrified to the bones. She screams, yells, shouts and weeps all she can, until her throat is swollen and unable to give up any other noise. She's unsure whether the sheets are moist from sweat or urine; at this point, she honestly doesn't want to find out. Her stomach twists; this time vomit replenishes her mouth and the hand she placed on it, dripping on her and her sheets (but isn't it the first time she throws up, really?).

She wishes, craves for Wisely to wake her at dawn, whispering a hushed "Road, you have to wake up, before they do" for her family not to discover the deal; she wants her brother to be here for her so that she could bury her face in his shoulder and wet his shirt with tears. But Wisely's dead. Worse: as the others, he doesn't seem ready to come back any time soon.

The safehouse is empty: the only one who could hear her is Adam, stoic, apathetic, spiritless Adam who probably wouldn't realize it if the world was burning, broken and imprisoned as he is in memories, living nightmares of Neah.

She wonders once more if hers are, too, remembrances or dreams.

And, once more, she scorns her pitiful, lamentable self. _Dream_ in name and in power, unable to face her own.

Once again, she decides she's rested enough to avoid Morpheus for at least a few days. Her face betrays sleep-deprivation, yet her expression steadies on cruelty rather than on exhaustion.

She'll murder again, torture, accomplish the worst, become the monster... And hope, hope the blood and horror she creates like a piece of art will dilute away the horror and blood of her nocturnal fantasies.


End file.
